


Married by accident

by EaSnowPw



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 08:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17998478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EaSnowPw/pseuds/EaSnowPw
Summary: "Sir...""Not now. Whatever it is, you can take care of it.""Sir, you're married.""Y'know, I did quite good for myself." He looked at a few pictures, nodding appreciatively. Yeah, he wasn't disappointed. Nice, smart and hot. "Okay, start the divorce proceedings while I figure out how this happened."





	Married by accident

"Sir..."  
  
Tony frowned. He kept clicking, frowning as he compared two ring designs.  
  
"Sir..." Friday pressed.  
  
"Not now. Whatever it is, you can take care of it." He dismissed the two and returned to the bigger list.  
  
"This is urgent."  
  
Tony huffed. Nothing could beat this. He was committing to this beautiful woman.  
  
"Can't be. Which one of these would Pepper like?"  
  
"Sir, you're married."  
  
"Not yet, Fri. Trying to, though, and you're distracting me."  
  
"You've been married for 20 years."  
  
A wedding certificate popped up in front of him. Tony froze, staring.  
  
"Stephen Strange? Who the fuck is that?"  
  
"Your husband, sir." A new hologram popped up. Tony glared upwards.  
  
"I didn't program you to be this sassy, young lady." Still, he scanned his... husband? Friday wasn't programmed to play pranks. This was real.  
  
"Apologies."  
  
Tony whistled. Doctor Stephen Strange. Neurosurgeon. Rich asshole.  
  
"Y'know, I did quite good for myself." He looked at a few pictures, nodding appreciatively. Yeah, he wasn't disappointed. Nice, smart and hot. "Okay, start the divorce proceedings while I figure out how this happened."  
  
"On it, boss. Las Vegas..."  
  
"Yeah, yeah," he brushed her off. "I don't even remember meeting the guy." Or falling for him. Or marrying him. He'd had sex with many people before, why the hell did he marry this one? Whatever. "Send him his half of the divorce. Bet the sorry bastard doesn't even know we're married."

* * *

Years later and no answer from the neurosurgeon, Tony began feeling worried. Nothing much, just a bit. Just slightly less put together.  
  
"Friday, status on Stephen Strange."  
  
"Missing."  
  
"Oh, for fuck's sake!" And he'd even found a ring and proposed by now! He couldn't just tell Pepper they weren't getting married after all, right, because he'd already married some dude at a party 20 years back! "How can he be missing? He's a doctor! Probably operating on someone right now."  
  
"Actually, boss..."  
  
"Is he dead? That would fix things." He could be legally widowed. No problem.  
  
A new hologram popped up with Stephen Strange's recent whereabouts. Car crash. Hands incapacitated. End of career. 7 surgeries. No result. Tony really felt sorry for the guy. Until he realized that now he'd upped and gone MIA in Nepal.  
  
"Ok, I'm done being nice. File for divorce without him. Presume him dead or whatever."  
  
"I... can't. He's been spotted in New York a few weeks ago."  
  
Tony groaned, tossing his head back. Fuck this guy.  
  
"Find a legal way of getting a divorce. I'm running out of time."  
  
Little did he know how easy it would be.

* * *

"Tony Stark, my name is Doctor Stephen Strange and I need you to come with me. Oh, uh, congratulations on the wedding, by the way."  
  
The engineer briefly debated on strangling the man in front of him. The audacity. The sheer nerve. That jerk. Where the fuck had he been for the past year?   
  
"I'm sorry, you giving out tickets to something?" That outfit was a disgrace.  
  
"We need your help. It's not overselling it to say that the fate of the universe is at stake."  
  
"Who's we?"  
  
Then Bruce came out of the glowy portal thingy and Tony realized that marriage was his last concern right then.

* * *

"So, if we're going to be fighting together, I have a few questions," Tony asked on the ship after having saved his soon to be ex-husband. Professional courtesy.  
  
"That's reasonable."  
  
"Ha! Can't remember the last time anyone called me that." Tony scanned the sorcerer. Definitely good looking, though not exactly handsome in a classic way. "Speaking of things I can't remember, could you discreetly sign some divorce papers for me, doc?"  
  
In the background, Peter fell from the ceiling. Stephen just stared at him in disbelief.  
  
"There's no way that toilet paper was legally binding." Tony wished he had been right.  
  
"Surprise! It was. And I've been trying to divorce you for a year now and you haven't been making things easy, going MIA on me."  
  
"I... apologize?" The man was surprised enough as it was. "I will sign whatever you need after this is all over."  
  
"Alright, so... No money, just so we're clear." Tony's answer was a scoff. Fair enough. "No even division of assets. Just each one of us on his way."  
  
"Mr Stark, you've been married to him!?!?" Peter had finally found a voice, though it was several notes above his usual one.  
  
"Don't ask me how it happened. I don't know, either."  
  
"Your friend dared you. Mine weren't good enough to stop me," Stephen replied, rubbing his forehead.  
  
"Rhodey?" A nod. "He knew this whole time? Oh, I'll kill him!"  
  
Stephen laughed. It was a low, rich sound, which tickled Tony's eardrums in all the right ways. To his surprise, he found himself wanting to hear it again.  
  
This was not good. They needed to find and finish Thanos ASAP.

* * *

What good is a wizard who can see the future when you lose the fight anyway?   
  
Everything in that question made Tony want to strangle his husband.  
  
"If you think this will make me choose you over Pepper, you're delusional." It had come out with a lot more hatred than he'd planned, but he didn't regret it. Not even when Stephen flinched.  
  
"Tony... It was the only way." Light blue eyes were filled with an odd type of pain, as if he was apologising and hurting himself at the same time. Then he turned to dust, like almost everyone else around them.  
  
On a dead planet, a new titan was born.

* * *

Pepper hugged Tony, crying. Once again, they'd all thought him dead. Once again, he'd proved them all wrong.  
  
The breakup came after he'd recovered some of his strength.  
  
"I can't do this anymore, Tony," she said between tears. "I can't. I can't take it away from you, either. The world needs Iron Man and I know that you tried, but this was unfair to you, too."  
  
The ring was back in his hands, heart shattered and soul mourning.  
  
"I'm so sorry. I... we can still be friends, if you want. I... please say something."  
  
"Just go."  
  
She nodded and left. He could finally cry on his own.  
  
Distantly, he wondered if that stupid sorcerer had foreseen all that mess.

* * *

"I wonder if your first spouse would have been better for you."  
  
Tony stopped tinkering, a deadpan look on his face. Rhodey was none the wiser, looking thoughtful.  
  
"Rhodey-bear, when were you going to remind me that I've been married for 20 fucking years?"  
  
"Remind you? When did you forget?"  
  
"Probably the day it happened?"  
  
"Oh, right. How about that, Mr I-never-foget-anything-when-I-drink?" Tony flipped him off. "Besides, I was just a witness. You shoved the marriage certificate in my face, then he left with it. Doubt you even consummated the marriage. Wait, are you two still married?" The colonel started laughing when Tony just glared. "You are? Did Pepper know?"  
  
"Hell no! I wanted to divorce him by then!"  
  
"Great plan. How's that going?"  
  
"Dusty."  
  
"Oh."  
  
Yeah. Oh.

* * *

Tony was 3/4 unimpressed with the vanishing act of his husband after he came back from ashes and 1/4 irritated. This time, though, he had an address.  
  
"Strange, where the fuck are you? Seriously, this is getting old. Come talk to me so I can properly pun..." Tony stopped because he'd bumped into the sorcerer.  
  
"The snap had unexpected mystical complications across the multiverse," Stephen explained, looking frazzled. "Come with the papers next time and I'll sign everything. Then you're free."  
  
"Yeah, no hurry. Pepper left." Tony waved off the budding apology in the other's mouth. "That's not why I'm here. I have questions."  
  
There was a crash upstairs. Stephen flinched.  
  
"Tomorrow?"  
  
"Sure. I'll be back."  
  
It distantly occurred to Tony that he now practically had a date with his husband.

* * *

"So it's safe to assume you didn't know about the breakup, which was my first question," Tony began warily, glancing around the... living room he had been received in.  
  
"It was not one of the things I checked when I looked at the timelines," the sorcerer replied dryly.  
  
"So, I'll cut to the chase. Why this one?"  
  
"Well, I'm alive, for one. I can't see futures I do not survive, unfortunately. Thanos is dead, the gauntlet destroyed, stones scattered, few deaths. Seemed obvious."  
  
"Yeah, but Rogers is dead. People are traumatised and being a therapist has never paid more. You're saying we couldn't have possibly won on Titan back then?"  
  
Green eyes flickered to the side before answering.  
  
"We wouldn't have been able to scatter the stones."  
  
"Correct me if I'm wrong, Stephen, but you were the biggest baddest boy on that rock. You saying you wouldn't have won the hustle and bustle for the mitten of death?"  
  
"You don't give yourself enough credit."  
  
"Likewise, doc. I know there's something you're not telling me about that particular scenario. Spit it out."  
  
Tony watched the other man shakily sip his tea (it's not an emotional response, Tony, just a wound). Stephen sighed.  
  
"Before I say anything, let me tell you that I'm walking blind now. I haven't looked this far." Tony nodded, wary, but kept their gazes locked. "I was unwilling to let you die."  
  
"What, did our wayward marriage mean something to you, doc?" the engineer scoffed against his better judgement. He caught a flash of hurt on the other's face.  
  
"You assume that all futures went similarly. They didn't. More than once, I convinced you all to run, to flee with the time stone. In those... options, we all perished in gruesome and painful ways, unable to find a path to victory." Stephen drew in a deep breath. "But, sometimes, we would run for years... we even grew old together a few times, until Thanos found us, weak and frail, and ruined whatever little happiness we'd managed to scavenge for ourselves." Tony noticed the other man slipping away, caught by his own demons, but he'd already given something away. The engineer steeled himself and reached for trembling hands to hold in his own.  
  
"You fell for me."  
  
The sorcerer nodded, looking away.  
  
"You don't owe me anything for that. These are my feelings. I won't... I'm not imposing them on you, but you asked. I'm sorry if it's not the answer you've been looking for. I... You deserve to be happy."  
  
"You played God."  
  
"Rogers only survived once, when he was left with lifelong debilitating handicaps. I couldn't have saved him, anyway." Stephen hesitated. "He wore the gauntlet. I think he knew."  
  
"He probably did." Tony sighed, letting go of the other's hands. "If we give this a go, we'll have to renew our vows." Stephen's eyes widened. "Not right now, but we will. I don't know you well, but I like what I know and I want to know more. You know everything, yet you still haven't gotten sick of me, so I guess I don't need to ask, but I will: would you go out with me?"  
  
"Of course. We're all different in every timeline. I would love to get to know this version of you."

* * *

His husband was loving and kind. His husband was nice. His husband was selfless. His husband was soft. He was also arrogant and rude on occasion. He was magical. He was sassy. He was intelligent. His husband was Stephen Strange.  
  
"All my life I've been looking for something I already had. Without knowing I had it." The crowd chuckled. "But now I do. I have you and I want you. I want you by my side, the way we've been for the past few years. I want you with me all the time." Tony took a deep breath and looked into his husband's eyes. "I love you, more than I thought possible."  
  
Stephen held his hands in his shaky ones.  
  
"I watched you live and fight and die millions of times. I've shared all my secrets with you, secrets I hadn't told anyone about. You're always there for me, even when I know I'm less than pleasant. Tony Stark, I love you and I want to spend the rest of our lives together in all possible futures. I love you."  
  
The rings were exchanged, then the couple kissed in front of their friends.

* * *

"Thank you," Stephen whispered as they were dancing together later that night. Most people were growing tired, so it was likely this was one of the last songs.  
  
"What for?" Tony asked, blearily moving his head from his husband's shoulder to meet his eyes. He seemed serious. "If it's the money thing, I told you..." Stephen shook his head, interrupting him. "Then what?"  
  
"Accepting me. This. Us. I never looked this far into the future, so I thought I'd given up on us in exchange for victory." A shaky hand cupped the engineer's cheek. "Thank you for accepting me like this."  
  
"Gandalf, I'm not doing you any favours. I love you like you love me. So get it out of that pretty head of yours that you owe me anything for dating me."  
  
"Alright," the sorcerer breathed out. "I love you."  
  
"That's more like it. Now come on. You owe me a wedding night."


End file.
